Stars and Flowers
by Boogum
Summary: There's a room where stars shine on varnished brown. My fingers can sketch petals around these stars, creating a halo of flowers with starry faces – childish pictures that mean nothing and everything.


**A/N: I'll warn you now that this one-shot does deal with sensitive topics and may unsettle some people. I'm afraid my writing always gets a little weird when I'm in my experimental moods, but it's all I could think to write during my break (goodness knows why), so I decided to just go with it. **

**Stars and Flowers**

There's a room where stars shine on varnished brown. My fingers can sketch petals around these stars, creating a halo of flowers with starry faces – childish pictures that mean nothing and everything.

It is dark in this room. It is always dark. Above me is a curtain of white, silky and perfect, like a wedding dress. I like to touch this curtain, feel its soft texture while I hide in my sanctuary with the stars and flowers. Alone. Silent.

Once, I stayed in my secret place for too long. There were two people who entered through the door, intruding on my fantasies, though they did not know I was there. One was a man, the other a woman. I knew them well, though I could not see their faces. They discarded their clothes like cicadas shedding skin, letting the bundles of cloth fall in grotesque piles to the ground, still carrying a remnant of the shapes that had formed them. The world above me creaked and wheezed, pressing closer under the weight of the two bodies.

I sat still, holding my knees to my chest, staring at the drawings on my canvas of varnished brown. I was afraid. I didn't want to be caught, but there was something else that frightened me – something that I sensed in the discarded clothes, in the rickety wheezing of the world pressing down on me.

Then the noises started. It was the man first, his voice low, more of a grunt. He sounded like an animal. I could hear the woman too. She was moaning, almost in pain. In my head, all I could see was a fish gasping for air, drowning on nothing.

I pushed the veil of white away and crawled out from my sanctuary, staring up at reality. I saw the man on top of the woman, thrusting into her with his body, as if he were trying to destroy something deep inside her. He was still grunting, and looking at him now – balding head and fleshy white frame – he looked just like the animal I thought him. The woman was writhing underneath him, breasts bare and jiggling, like two large jellies. I wanted to giggle – a tired, hysterical giggle – but I didn't. I didn't make a sound.

I crawled back into my sanctuary, back to the darkness and childish pictures. The stars and flowers were ruined, smeared with finger marks so that they had no true shape, no meaning. I could still hear the animal grunting, the fish gasping for air. I blocked it out, but nothing could block the image of my father killing my mother. For that is what it looked like to me. He was killing her. He was destroying her.

I wanted to cry.

It was almost two hours later before my parents found me, huddled in a protective cocoon, my small body trembling with silent tears.

"Why are you crying?" my father asked.

So I told him. I told him what I saw. My father got flustered and angry. I shouldn't have been watching, he said; I shouldn't sneak into their bedroom like that.

"You were hurting her!" I screamed wildly, ribs bursting under the pressure of my emotions.

My father had nothing to say to that. His face just went red – as red as his hair – and then he looked imploringly to my mother.

"Don't worry about what you saw, dear," my mother tried to reassure me, bridging the silence. "It's just something Mummies and Daddies do. It's nothing to worry about."

I stared at my mother searchingly, trying to determine whether she was telling me the truth. She wouldn't look me in the eye. Neither of them would. Even then, I could feel their embarrassment, their discomfort. They were like two children caught with their hands in the lolly jar – especially my father. I couldn't even look at him without feeling sick. In my mind, all I could see was his fleshy nakedness pushing into my mother, as if he were trying to assimilate with her body – to recreate her in his own image.

"That's what people do?" I asked hesitantly.

"Yes, dear," my mother responded, still not meeting my eyes. "It's perfectly normal. You'll understand one day."

My father looked away. I stared at my hands. I didn't tell them that I didn't want to understand – that I would never let a man do that to me. I simply nodded my head and left the room.

In my mind, I could still hear the fish gasping for air.

**X**

_She is the one who must open,_

_Must accept,_

_Her womanhood cradled between pleasure and pain,_

_Taken or given,_

_Always to be claimed._

_Fragile girl,_

_He will unravel her mysteries,_

_Her secret places,_

_He will steal her soul._

**X**

I was nine when I learnt the word for the act which had tainted my innocence. Sex. It fascinated me, repulsed me, made me want to cry out in anger. I wrote it over and over on a blank piece of parchment. Sex. Sex. Sex.

What was I trying to achieve?

I don't know. There were a lot of strange things I did back then.

I was twelve when it began to make sense. It started with a boy. He had black hair and green eyes. Emerald eyes. He made me happy and confused, and so many other feelings.

I wanted him to do things to me, even then. I thought about it. I thought about it and thought about it, even though it sometimes frightened me. I never forgot the image of my father destroying my mother, and I was scared this boy might be the same. Would he try to invade me? To make me like a fish drowning on nothing?

In the end, that is exactly what he did.

I was seventeen. He had just defeated Voldemort. He couldn't wait any longer.

"Come on, Ginny," he murmured, pressing himself against my side. "Just once."

I closed my eyes as I lay next to him on the bed. I knew what he wanted. There was a part of me that wanted it too, but there was another part – one far more insistent – that couldn't give in to him.

He ran his hand up my thigh, brushing against the thin cotton of my underwear. "Please, Ginny. I've been waiting so long."

His voice was husky, already sinking into the animal. I shivered.

"Please," he repeated.

I don't know how his hand slipped past the cotton without my realising, but suddenly his fingers were _there_, and I could feel him inside me, searching and stroking, hungry and lustful.

I squeezed my eyes shut, aware of the pulsing heat burning between my legs, of the pleasure he was giving me, yet I could not ignore the defilement he made me feel. He was already stealing something from me – something precious I knew I would never be able to reclaim – and I had not given him permission to do so. I had agreed to nothing. He just took my silence as acquiescence. He would have taken anything I said or did as acquiescence.

"Stop," I whispered, pushing his hand away, conscious of the wetness smeared on his fingertips – my own essence.

"Oh, come on, Ginny," he muttered, sulky now. "We're both old enough. What's to stop us?"

"I don't want you to."

"Why not?"

His voice was hard, impatient.

"Because," I responded, as if that explained everything.

He stroked my thigh again. I could feel the sticky wetness on my skin from where he had put his finger inside me.

"You'll like it," he said, softening his voice now, trying to be persuasive. "Everyone likes it."

I shivered. In my mind, I could see the fleshy body of my father thrusting into my mother; see my mother writhe and moan, breasts jiggling like grotesque jellies.

"Please," he whispered, edging himself closer. "Just once, Ginny. Please, just once. Just let me do it with you. Just once."

He slid my nightdress off my body, still whispering for me to relax, to trust him. My breasts were humble and bare, shrinking even smaller from the cold and the threat of his touch. He removed my underwear next, and then his clothes followed. I didn't want to look at him, didn't want to see the thing he would force inside me. But I felt it. I felt it push through my walls, hot and throbbing, breaking my barriers and making me cry out in pain.

I wanted to cry. I didn't.

I wanted to scream. Eventually, I did.

He couldn't be gentle. He was too desperate. He wanted me – all of me. I closed my eyes and saw stars shining on varnished brown. I saw myself creating petals around those stars, then I heard the noises, and my fingers dragged along the wood, smearing the flowers into nothing.

I was making those noises now. _He_ was making those noises.

"No!" I cried, shoving him off me, only making me cry out in pain even more.

He sat up, red-faced and angry. "What the hell is wrong with you?" he exclaimed, emerald eyes flashing.

"Nothing," I sobbed. "Just get out! Get out!"

"You're crazy," he spat, grabbing his boxers and putting them on. "I always thought you were insane, but now I know it's true."

I responded by throwing his robe at him. He left.

I never let him touch me after that. We broke up five days later. Not that it mattered. I was already ruined by then.

**X**

_She is the one who must embrace,_

_Must share,_

_Her heart cradled between love and hate,_

_Taken or given,_

_Always to be claimed._

_Fragile girl,_

_Where have her petals gone?_

_He will piece her together,_

_Heal her wounds,_

_He will give her his soul. _

**X**

I'll never forget the day you came to me. It was dark, the sky too clouded to reveal its celestial lights, but then you appeared to me from out of nowhere: all silver and pale. My star.

"You look a wreck."

It was the first words you said to me – the first words you'd said to me in over eight years. I wanted to laugh, but instead I just cried. It was pathetic, as you wasted no time in pointing out, but you took pity on me all the same. You helped me get home. I think you thought I was drunk. I wasn't. I was just upset.

Harry was getting married. I was still alone. I was always alone. The image of the fish drowning on nothing had continued to haunt me. Men didn't want someone like that – someone who refused to be touched. They said there was something wrong with me. They said it so much that I started to believe it myself. Not that it made any difference; I still couldn't stand the thought of a man being close to me.

But you were different.

We didn't see each other again for a week. You spoke to me once – an abrupt greeting that meant nothing and everything.

I drew flowers on the mist coating my window.

We saw each other much more after that. It was an odd friendship. You were rude and blunt, sparing no thought for how I might take your words. I was impassioned and vulnerable, still trying to find my own two feet. We had many arguments.

"Stop being so damn sensitive, Ginevra," you'd say in that arrogant, dismissive way of yours.

You never called me Ginny. It was always Ginevra. _Always_.

My responses to such declarations were so garbled with emotion that there was no unravelling them. You certainly didn't try; you just laughed and told me I was being ridiculous, and suddenly everything would be alright again, because I would hear the affection in your voice and know you weren't trying to hurt me. Even then, I knew you would never hurt me.

And then, almost six months later, you kissed me.

I wasn't expecting it. Our lips collided awkwardly, and it was over in a second, but we stared at each other long afterwards.

"Why did you do that?" I whispered.

"I don't know," you admitted.

Our faces were still inches apart. Your eyes seemed more silvery than usual, reflecting the star I had long envisioned you to be. I realised I wanted to kiss you again, so I did. I kissed you long and hard, and you wrapped your arms around me, pulling me close to you. There was no fear when I felt your firm, angular body press against mine, only warmth.

I don't know how we ended up on the bed. We certainly never spoke about it, but something in us pulled our bodies towards it. You laid me gently down, knowing exactly what you were going to do. I knew it too, and I made no struggle when you kissed me again and began to remove my clothes. For the first time, I felt passion. For the first time, I wanted a man to touch my naked body.

You.

Yet the fear was still there, lurking beneath the desire, like water hidden under ice. The cracks began to show when you touched me in my hidden places, my soul cringing as it sensed the deeper intrusion that was sure to come – the one that would turn us into something ugly and grotesque. Something inhuman. You sensed my panic, or perhaps you just felt the way my body went rigid at your touch. Either way, you pulled yourself away from me.

Your eyes found mine, two silver stars in a face so pale that you seemed unearthly. "What's wrong, Ginevra?" you asked, yet your voice was not impatient or angry. You were concerned, loving.

Tears slid down my cheeks. I wanted to be with you, but I was afraid. I could still see the animal hurting my mother, the fish gasping for air. I didn't want you to hurt me like that – to turn me into a lump of flesh that was yours to do with as you pleased, with no identity of my own, left to waste away as my use dried up.

But then I looked into your eyes. Your beautiful, star-like eyes.

"Nothing is wrong," I whispered, smiling now as I realised the truth of my words. "Nothing at all."

I opened myself to you that night. I let you share in my warmth, my secrets, embracing all that you were as a part of me. You embraced me as part of you too, letting me discover your own secrets, your own soul. And so we became one: transformed in the fusion of our bodies, moving together in a rhythm of passion and love.

There was nothing ugly about it. Nothing grotesque. Nothing hurtful. I no longer felt like I was drowning on nothing. I had just finally learnt to breathe. You loved me and showed me visions of such painful exquisiteness that I could bear it no longer – that I could do no more than breathe your name like a prayer to the night.

"_Draco. Draco. Draco." _

You were my star, and you were beautiful.

"Stay with me," I whispered some time afterwards, my body huddled near yours, though not quite touching.

You rolled over to face me, all silver and pale, even more striking in your nakedness. Our eyes met, but you said nothing and simply wrapped your arms around me, holding me close. I smiled and closed my eyes.

In the morning we were still entwined, my hair forming a fiery halo around you. It meant nothing and everything.


End file.
